Read Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River Online
Authors: Gary Hansen
He turned back to the group at the table. "How are the safety warnings going?"
Dan answered, "Downstream, the police have closed all access to Lee's Ferry and other roads down into the canyon. The rangers at the
Grant pointed upstream into
Dan nodded. "Yeah, we called 'em."
Grant continued. "How come I don't see anybody? What if some boater wants to motor down by the dam? If a boat enters this canyon upstream from the dam, he'll get sucked through the hole."
The group looked around at each other.
Earl spoke up, "I guess we could park a boat about a mile upstream to keep people away."
Grant
smiled,
his first smile in a while. "Better make it a fast one. We don't want to see a police boat get pulled over either."
* * *
9:10 a.m. -
The man shut off the motorcycle and leaned it on its kickstand, then climbed off. Being an infrequent rider, nearly three hours on the road had taken its toll. His inner thighs and buttocks ached and his lower back wasn't much better. His fingers resisted straightening, preferring instead to remain in a gripped position. He fumbled while trying to unfasten his helmet strap; after removing his gloves, he was able to complete the task. He stuffed the gloves into the helmet, and left the helmet on the seat of the bike, unlocked. After all, this was
Entering the restaurant, he shucked the sunglasses and stuffed them in his pocket. Not waiting to be seated, he headed straight to the bar where the TV was located. Finding a bar with a TV in St. George had been no easy task, especially one open this early in the morning. On his previous trips, he had stopped at almost every restaurant on
He climbed on a stool and looked up at the TV. He was glad to be alone at the bar. Unfortunately, the TV was tuned to a sports channel showing baseball highlights. A fifty-ish woman with gray hair, who looked like she would rather be anywhere else but waiting tables, walked up with a coffee pot.
"Coffee?"
She laid a menu down in front of him.
He slid his cup toward her, an unspoken response to the question. While she poured, he pointed at the TV. "Can we put that on the news?"
She looked around the room, most likely to see if anyone else would care. After she verified the room was still empty, she nodded. "Sure. I'll get somebody to come in and change it for you." She left.
He picked up the menu and scanned it, but he was so anxious to see the news that he couldn't concentrate. Why couldn't she have changed the channel herself? He leaned over the bar and looked for a remote.
The waitress materialized beside him.
"Ready to order?"
Her voice sounded strange, as if she didn't approve of him leaning over the bar.
He dropped back in his seat and opened the menu again. There were pictures of omelets, eggs, French toast, and other breakfast specials. He didn't feel all that hungry. He just wanted to watch the news. "Is somebody gonna come in and change the channel?"
"Yeah.
They'll be here in a minute. Do you need some more time?"
He scanned the pictures in the menu, not close to making a decision. "How about a couple of pancakes?" he said suddenly.
She pointed at a line in the menu.
"Two or three?"
"Two," he said.
She wrote on her pad and continued talking without looking up.
"Bacon, sausage, or ham?"
He didn't feel like any. "I'll take bacon."
She grabbed his menu. "Somebody'll be here in a minute to change the TV." She left.
He watched a highlight of someone hitting a home run, fans fighting in the grandstands for the ball. He hated baseball. What a boring sport - too much waiting. He looked at his watch. It had been three hours already. What if nothing else was happening at the dam? Maybe the news wasn't on to it yet. What if they figured out how to fix the leak?
"You want another channel?" A man in an apron, probably a cook, walked into the bar.
He pointed to the TV. "Can we see if there's anything on the news?"
"Sure." The man walked over to the TV, reached up, and started flipping channels. "Any one in particular?" he asked.
Which channel would be first to cover it? A local network, probably. He was about to say something when a picture of the Glen Canyon Dam, obscured in fog, appeared briefly then disappeared.
"Stop!" he yelled, holding out both of his hands. "Go back a couple."
The cook looked at him curiously, as if he was thinking he might pull a gun or something. The TV flipped back to the view of the dam.
"That's it." He stood and walked closer to the TV.
The view of the Glen Canyon Dam was taken from a helicopter. The whole area where the west elevator had been was gone. It had simply disappeared. Water poured from a football field-sized cut in the dam. His heart seemed to stop beating. This was better than his dreams. He couldn't stop a huge grin from stretching across his face.
The man in the apron stood next to him. "Is that the Glen Canyon Dam?" he asked, pointing toward the television.
The words "Glen Canyon Dam,
"Yeah," the man said, not taking his eyes off the TV. The camera panned downstream and showed the water rushing down the rock canyon. Brown water, obscured in mist, churned in constantly changing rapids, rapids that looked like they could swallow a whole house. He quickly estimated the water levels below the dam to be a hundred feet above normal.
"How did you know about this already?" The cook asked, without taking his eyes off the TV. "Did you hear about it on the radio or something?"
"Yeah," he answered, without thinking or looking at the man.
They both stared blankly at the television without saying anything. The camera showed the water line above the dam, and a close up of the water rushing through the break.
"What caused it?" the man in the apron asked. "Did they say on the radio?"
He heard the words, but at first he didn't realize they were directed toward him. He watched in amazement as a piece of concrete the size of a house broke off the dam and disappeared into the canyon below. He couldn't believe it. The scene seemed surreal, like a fantasy. He felt a large pit growing in his stomach.
The cook tugged at his arm. "Did they say what caused it?
On the radio?"
He looked over at the man. "Huh?"
"What caused it? You said you heard about it on the radio."
He shook his head and motioned back toward the door, keeping his eyes on the TV. "I don't have a radio. I'm on a motorcycle."
The man gave him a funny look, making him realize he had just contradicted himself regarding the radio. In the depths of his consciousness he wondered if he should try to say something to cover up the contradiction, but his amazement of what was happening on the TV overrode the concern. The cook must have shared the same feeling, because he broke the stare and reached up and turned up the volume on the TV.
". . . no comment yet from law enforcement or the Bureau of Reclamation regarding the cause of this disaster.
Additionally, we were unable to contact anyone downstream in the
"It's gonna drown everybody in the
This comment bothered him. Hopefully the park would have enough time to warn everybody, and get them out. All they really needed to do was hike up a couple of hundred feet, to get above the water. He didn't want to see too many people die.
The trance was broken when the waitress delivered his plate of pancakes to the bar. He jumped when he heard the waitress behind him.
"Oh
my gosh
. What dam is that?" she said. The words "Glen Canyon Dam" were still painted across the bottom of the screen.
The man in the apron pointed at the screen. "
The waitress held a hand in front of her mouth.
"Oh my!
What happened?"
He noticed that another waitress, this one much younger, appeared wearing the same dress. A man in regular clothes, not the restaurant uniforms, walked in. "What the . . ."
Over the next few moments, more people showed up, most of them other customers. The comments and questions became noisy enough that the cook had to turn up the TV again. The man watched for a few more minutes, until another enormous piece of concrete broke off the structure and fell into the water. He no longer had any desire to eat. And although the last thing he wanted was to pull his eyes off the images on the television, the group made him uncomfortable. And besides,
* * *
9:15 a.m. - Hole in the Rock,
Julie and Erika stopped for a rest. Paul and Greg were a hundred feet farther ahead. Erika took off her t-shirt and adjusted her bikini top. It was hot already, maybe ninety degrees. Julie unscrewed the lid on her canteen and took a long drink.
Fifteen minutes before, they had arrived at buoy 66, which meant they were sixty-six miles upstream from the Glen Canyon Dam. They turned into the small bay and tied off the boat on some rocks on the shore. There were three other boats parked and hikers were already spread out up and down the slope. Julie's first thought at seeing where they would be hiking was that you would have to be crazy to climb it. But, after a few minutes of complaining, she had reluctantly tightened the laces on her hiking boots, checked the canteens, and the two couples had started their hike.
Now, while Julie rested, she glanced back down and saw that another boat had arrived below and was preparing to hike. Julie wiped sweat off her brow and wished they had started earlier. "We should've done
Erika exhaled. "I don't think I would have felt like stopping anywhere on the way home."
Julie thought Erika had a good point. She looked up and saw the men still climbing. They looked strong, especially Paul, who had a springy step and looked like he could take off running at any moment. "Paul looks like he could go forever."
Erika looked up at her husband. "Yeah, and we were both stupid for not putting a rope around him so he could pull us with him."
Julie laughed. Now her imagination was going to be taunting her with that fantasy of a rope pulling her to the top.
Looking up the slope, Hole in the Rock was basically the intersection of two near-vertical cliffs, their merger creating a notch that climbed steeply upwards until it cut right into the rock and formed a steep 'V' shape. The climb up the notch was a minimum twenty-five percent grade, but sometimes increased to as much as forty-five. Julie's calves were burning already, even though they weren't even a quarter of the way up. Farther ahead the two men had stopped and were looking back down at their wives.
Erika pulled her black hair back and put a band around it. "You ready?"
Julie nodded.
"Yeah.
Let's go."
CHAPTER 11
9:20 a.m. -
Grant counted five representatives of the FBI walking in the door of the Glen Canyon Dam visitor center; two of them wore suits, the others navy blue coveralls with a yellow "FBI" insignia above the left pocket. All of them packed side arms. Brian had met them at the door, and then led them over toward the table.
A tall stocky guy in one of the suits spoke first. "Hi I'm--" He stopped when he got close to the window. "Wow!" He walked over to the glass and stared. The other four agents crowded up behind him. All five talked and pointed for what seemed like a minute.
When they finally broke away from the window, the stocky man spoke again. "Hi. I'm Phillip Sutherland. I'm a deputy field agent for the FBI. Who's in charge?"
Earl, still sitting at the table spoke from underneath his mustache. "You can be, if you want."
Grant laughed under his breath.
The agent took it in stride and smiled. "I'm sure you boys have had an interesting morning."
Grant reached out his hand. "Grant Stevens, Bureau of Reclamation. I flew in from
Brian reached out and shook the agent's hand.
"This is Dan, head of security."
Dan nodded.
"And this is Earl Smith, Captain of the Page Police Department."
The policeman waved without standing up.
The agent looked at Grant. "Well, we have a lot of catching up to do, but we don't want to get in your way. Is now a good time to bring us up to speed?"
"Sure." Grant walked over to the windows overlooking the dam. Grant was getting used to the fact that every time he looked at the dam, the hole got a little bigger. "At approximately 6:00 a.m., an explosion occurred in the west elevator shaft. It used to look just like that one." Grant pointed to the east elevator shaft, still visible on the other side of the dam. "The explosion blew the top out of the elevator shaft and a small hole in the dam. According to Brian, the original hole in the face of the dam was about five feet in diameter and about two-hundred feet down."
Brian nodded approval of the description.
The agent wiped a hand across his forehead. "You mean at 6:00 a.m. the hole was only five feet wide, and now it's this big?" He looked astonished.
Grant nodded. "It only took a small hole to get it started. The water's doing the rest.
Too much pressure.
The dam'll be gone in less than an hour."
"How long before . . ." Phil stopped. "Go ahead. Continue."
Grant continued. "Last night an unscheduled elevator repairman showed up and worked on the west elevator. We assume he put a bomb in the elevator. He left his supply trailer on the dam when he left. Earl's guys got a look at it before that section of the dam collapsed."
Earl held up a zip lock bag with white pellets inside. One of the guys in coveralls snatched the bag from Earl and studied it. The agent opened it and used his hand to wave the scent under his nose without inhaling it directly.
"Ammonium nitrate fertilizer," said Earl, still sitting. "The same stuff that kook used to re-arrange the federal building in
The FBI agent in coveralls nodded his head in agreement. "I think he's right."
"I assume that elevator repairmen do not normally use ammonium nitrate as part of their standard maintenance?" asked Phil.
The question was not intended to be answered, and no one tried.
The second agent in a suit spoke for the first time. "Are you guys searching for the perpetrator?"
Earl nodded. "There's a million ways out of Page, if you count all the dirt roads through the desert. But we setup roadblocks on all the highways a couple of hours ago. We're looking for any newer white pickups."
"And?" prompted Phil.
"And we ain't seen anybody suspicious in a new white pickup, Chevy or otherwise," Earl said unemotionally.
The questions then started to concentrate on what
Earl's people
found on their fact-finding episode on the dam. They were extremely excited when Earl showed them the camera and explained they had taken pictures of the trailer before it disappeared, then disappointed to find out that the pictures were not digital and would need to be developed. Obviously, things were done differently in the FBI. Grant told them about Brian's description of the sun peeking over the horizon, and one of the agents called someone on his cell phone for an exact time analysis. Overall, the number and detail of the questions was amazing.
At a certain point, when the discussions focused on Earl's officers and Dan's security team, Grant caught himself yawning. He stretched his arms and stood. He walked back over to the wall of windows. Since he had last looked, the water had carved another hundred feet across the dam. However, as the hole expanded east, it cut underneath the crest, leaving a huge section on top that had not broken off yet, an overhang of over a hundred feet. It just hung out there, defying the forces of water rushing around it. He expected it to break away any second. How long could it last? Then abruptly, the whole section let go and disappeared into the torrent below. An extremely loud crack, like thunder, followed a fraction of a second later. The group behind Grant stopped talking and looked at the dam, many standing up for a better view. Grant estimated to himself that about forty or fifty times more water than normal was heading down the
One of the agents in coveralls spoke first. "I'd hate to be downstream in the
CHAPTER 12
9:45 a.m. -
David looked at his watch and noted the time. The silver raft drifted silently along the smooth stretch. He was glad to be back on the river again. After gulping a big breakfast made of hash browns, eggs, bacon, and sausage, all scrambled together, which Keller called morning
stew,
the group had packed the silver rafts and pushed off.
David was falling in love with the leisurely pace of the river trip. They never rushed to do anything. After six days away from the grind at the office, routines were forgotten. Although the nagging feeling that a million things needed to be done was still perceptible, it had diminished to only an occasional passing thought, which he was learning to ignore. Sometimes in the past, after returning to work after a long vacation, David experienced a sense of re-orientation, where he had to try hard to remember how to do his job. He laughed to himself. After two weeks in the
Judy, sitting just in front of him, turned and called back to the guide. "What have we got downstream today, Keller?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, today is an easy one. Probably the best rapids we're going to see are at Waltenburg."
Everybody turned around for the information. Afram asked the first question.
"How big?"
"Class five at the best, nothing like the Jewels
were
yesterday. I'll have to take her in sideways just to cool you off."
The Jewel Rapids had been the best of the trip, especially Sapphire where they had lost Judy into the river. As they had passed through the jewels, they passed mile one hundred, meaning they were a hundred miles downstream from Lee's Ferry, and a hundred fifteen from the Glen Canyon Dam. David couldn't believe how fast the trip was slipping away.
Becky shook her head. "I'm plenty cool, Keller. You don't need to get us wet on purpose."
As the weekend had progressed, Becky and Sam had been acting more and more like an item. She tended to always need help or protection, and Sam was more than willing to fill the role. Sam had even asked Afram to switch places in the raft this morning, so he could sit next to her. David thought it was funny that they could work together every day and never even notice each other, then spend a few days camping with no showers or makeup and all of a sudden discover a little chemistry. Was it possible the outdoors stimulated their hormones? If so, why didn't Becky or Judy look any better to him? Or, more likely, the chemistry had always been there, buried and throttled by the office environment and politics. Sam generally gave his soul at work, and was one of those head-down workaholics. It was probably impossible for Sam to find love at work.
Keller had it figured out.
"Why, girl?
Sam's not going to let anything happen to you."
The group watched Sam to see what his reaction would be, but he didn't take the bait, showing only a poker face. Becky, on the other hand, couldn't conceal her smile. She obviously liked to be associated with Sam.
"If there are no rapids, then what's for lunch?" Afram asked with a very serious face.
Keller leaned forward. "Didn't I tell you? Today is YOYO day."
When Keller received the blank looks he expected, he continued. "Don't ya know what YOYO means?"
There were a few headshakes, but Judy was the one who asked, "No, Keller, what's YOYO day?"
"YOYO means: You're--On --Your -- Own," he said, smiling.
They laughed and Afram elaborated. "You mean we can go through the supplies and take whatever we want for lunch?"
"No, what I mean
is
we'll pull the rafts over for lunch and you guys can eat whatever you find. Kinda like back to nature, environmentalism at its finest."
David looked up at the rock walls and felt glad that Keller was only kidding. He wondered how long he could survive on his own. Not long, he bet. He would wander around for days looking for food. In fact, he hadn't seen anything edible so far on the trip. There were fish in the river; he saw them jump occasionally, but without a pole and bait, he'd die of old age before he caught something.
David looked around. No one talked for a while, evidently having had their fill of sparring with Keller. Even Keller craned his neck and admired the canyon walls. Becky rested her hand on Sam's leg. A state of relaxation permeated. Even though the white-water was the primary reason they had come to the
* * *